The resident, who fears possible angry reaction of some Roosevelt Island dog owners to these concern prefers to remain anonymous, adds:

Here's an article that deals with dog pee and in it, there is this text:

Health Code § 161.03 Control of dogs and other animals to prevent nuisance.

A person who owns, possesses or controls a dog, cat or other animal shall not permit the animal to commit a nuisance on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used in common by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting on a public place.

Notes to § 161.03

This section is derived from S.C. § 227. Specific reference is made to cats as well as dogs. The reference to walls within premises is new. Under New York City Criminal Courts Act § 102c a magistrate is empowered to try and punish a violation of this section as an offense punishable by a fine of $25 or ten days imprisonment, or both.

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) policy on subject is as follows:

ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION

DOG CONTROL POLICY

New York State and New York City animal control laws are intended to safeguard the health and safety of the public.

A dog control policy for Roosevelt Island intends to safeguard the health and safety of Island residents and visitors.

It is the intent of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) to have a policy that is consistent with the regulations of the City and State of New York. As such, it is the policy of RIOC that responsible dog owners on Roosevelt Island will:

Have their dogs actively vaccinated against the disease of rabies and be able to provide proof of such vaccination:

Obtain a license for their dog from the City of New York (New York City Dog License Law, Chapter 115 of the Laws of 1894 as amended);

Attach a dog license tag to the dog�s collar when the animal is in a public place (New York City Health Code �161.04);

Hold the dog on a leash no longer than six feet when the dog is in a public place (New York City Health Code �161.05);

Remove their dog�s feces from any public areas (New York City Health Code �161.03 and New York Public Health Law �1310);

Utilize only designated dog walk area(s) for off leash roaming of their dog.

Effective immediately, Public Safety Officers will enforce this policy and issue notices of violations to dog owners who are not in compliance.

RIOC Public Safety Director (PSD) Jack McManus and Deputy Director Lynda Marmara discussed RIOC's dog control policy during December 15 meeting of Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Public Safety Committee. Director McManus said that if PSD is told of such an occurrence, they will issue a summons to the offending dog owner.

Also, reported previously on the filthy conditions, including dog urine and pigeon poop, at the Main Street Motorgate Garage.

15
comments
:

YetAnotherRIer
said...

The health code refers to "nuisance" and "feces" but nothing about urine in specific. I think this is not as clear cut as it should be and will require a court's decision how much urine is required to be a nuisance.

Buildings/store owners should be keeping their sidewalks clean. Usually rain will wash away filth but that is not the case with portions of the sidewalks of RI that are within arcades (Eastwood, Westview, MP, Motorgate). These sidewalks should be kept up - swept, washed etc.

When I was in Tokyo back in the 70s I remember seeing the shopkeepers scrubbing the store (plate glass)windows and sidewalks before the stores opened for business in the AM. Here's a photo from a blog along with a caption of the same thing occurring daily in Japan: "In Japan....EVERYONE is soo clean. They sweep and wash the sidewalks in front of the houses and shops each morning."

Is it really a coincidence that Japanese women have the world's longest life expectancy? It probably makes a big difference if bacteria is washed away every morning - hygiene/cleanliness leads to better health. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/15/world-life-expectancy/9123889/

OldRossie: Yes it's dogs. Here is Freshly Pooling Pee, with dogs steps away. While PSD might be part of the solution, building managers need to let tenants know that excrement in arcades doesn't get washed away. Look at Manhattan Park's arcades, they don't seem as urine-soaked, right?

While there is some upkeep that merchants must do, I believe this should be the building owner's (or H-R's) responsibility to maintain. Does it make sense that one storefront is clean, while vacant storefronts are filled with excrement?

Aside from the Eastwood, I believe this contributes to the ongoing bird excrement around Motorgate: the atrium is clean because Central Parking staff wash the floors regularly. Outside Gristede's is still filled with poop. And the arcade on the north side of Motorgate (Home To The 40-Footer Poop Streak) belongs to RIOC and managed by H-R.

In summary, if the building owners did regular sidewalk/plaza washing, at least it wouldn't build up. Yes, PSD can give summonses, but I believe letters from building managers to their tenants will have a stronger effect.

Note on photos: #1 is pooling pee (there a separate photo, not shown here, of a second pee pool), photo #2 is taken about 15 second later as it continues to pool (read: this is freshly peed urine), photo #3 is two dogs and owners steps away. If you want to calculate to Pee Pooling Velocity, you can reasonably associate it with these two dogs. :-)

Your intention to improve the community notwithstanding, do you feel strange walking around the island taking random pictures of people to post online? Are you concerned with how that woman may have felt about it?

OldRossie: you have it wrong, people in public places should expect that some camera is videoing them; no problem making them publicly available.

This urine problem had also been reported to me, and the reporter had pointed me in the direction of the dog pee, which I photographed, which led to the nearby dogs. NY Times, local news programs, etc. do the same.

I'm not "walking around the island taking random picture of people to post online", I'm responding to a reported problem (which is related to several months of other Island problems with animal excrement) and photographing what I saw.

Please explain: if a merchant has a video camera pointing to a public place, sees a dog peeing and its owner, and puts the video on line, what's the problem?

OldRossie, look on 2007 WIRE frontpage, back when WIRE took positions against RIOC: photos of bogus parking placards and their cars, those people were upset that their benefit was being spoiled. Ditto for Geof Kerr who reported on RIOC/PSD parking problems years prior. Here's the link to the October 20, 2007 WIRE ("http://old.nyc10044.com/wire/2804/wire2804.pdf") and excerpts of that article below.

I also point out: the photos I posted today were in response to *your* questioning "are we sure it's the dogs". Had you not asked that question, I probably wouldn't have posted my photos ... but I thought How Odd That It's A Question Of Dogs, because ... of course it's dogs, and here are the photos. Why would you not have expected a response to your question to be: a posting of dog pee and people walking the dogs?

I still don't understand why you're trying to distract people of the dog urine problem in the Eastwood Arcade.

I think this was why the Island was originally designed to not allow pooches.

Anyway, we are approaching the problem as if there are no entities other than either RIOC, H-R, the store or building owners who can do some thing about it, or PSD who can issue tickets and so forth. This is really a quality of life issue and we are in NYC after all. Any of us can pick up the phone and call 311 and find out which City agency such as the Department of Health (DOH) has jurisdiction over the unsanitary condition. We can then file a complaint about the unsanitary condition and let the City act on our behalf with respect to RIOC, H-R, the building/store owners and so forth. (Please note: I am not exactly certain who is supposed to be keeping the sidewalks clean - that will be up to the City DOH to figure out and act accordingly.)

Actually, 99% of the time, no-one pays any attention to dogs pee-ing (marking) as they are walked on City streets in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the other boroughs. As we have noted, the rain washes away the urine and there is usually enough space in regular streets - space between buildings and sidewalks, space between sidewalks and streets, wider roadways, and just more space in general, so that pooling dog pee is not usually considered much of a problem. The difference on RI is that everything is scrunched together (sidewalk, building, roadway) because of lack of space - almost like what you would see in lower Manhattan with the alleyways before the regular streets were laid out. There is no "buffer" space along some stretches of sidewalk - and then you have the additional problem of the arcades, which do not allow for rain to wash away the urine. And on top of that you have an ethos of "the other guy must clean it" whereby RIOC, H-R, the building owners, the shop owners, and so forth, all point to the other guy as being the one responsible to clean up the mess on a daily basis. Thus, it never or rarely at best, gets cleaned up. The cycle of neglect leads to more neglect, may lead to discouragement and so forth. Even though it seems hard to believe, it is signs of neglect or lack of pride in taking care of property, that does lead to a general perception that we're in a "forgotten zone" where nobody cares, and in some way, the lack of taking care of sidewalks, or the grime at Motorgate, eventually leads to more littering, and so forth, since it certainly seems that nobody cares. One seemingly "little" thing like no-one taking care of the sidewalk can lead to bigger things or at least the sense of discouragement, social chaos/entropy, and so forth.

So, my point is, since the local responsible parties (RIOC, H-R, store/building owners) refuse to take responsibility, why not ask the City if there is an agency that could intervene on our behalf? It's not as if we're living in Fredonia - an imaginary principality that is totally separate from NYC. It doesn't matter if RIOC is the "landlord" - RI is still part of NYC and NYC should intervene if RIOC is not doing its job to keep the sidewalks clean.

So from your responses I gather that you couldn't care less how that woman felt about having her photo taken... This isn't phony parking tags, this is a lady out walking her dog. You aren't a closed circuit (by any means) security system, or a reporter, or a security guard, or a cop... if someone goes out to walk their dog and you take a picture of them, you're just a weirdo with a camera... I'm not trying to distract anyone from anything, I hate dogs and I have no idea who that woman is, but your process is... well.. DISTRACTING! Perturbed - that's the best word I can come up with when I see your posts.

But if I were to get really annoyed, I'd say something like: If you want to document something illegal stop taking pictures of things that don't intimidate you, like PSD patrols, parked cars and women walking their dogs. Grow a set and capture some drug deals by the helix, cat calling and harassing by the deli, or people doing drugs on the promenade...

Also, humans produce higher volumes of pee, and human males have difficulty instantly stopping their peeing. So if it were a drunken guy, heard someone coming, and ran away, then there would be a trail of pee beyond the initial spot, there would be a wider spray and splatter, and there would be a larger volume of pee.

In this case, it appears the pee was delivered at close range and lower volume, which is consistent with the dogs.

To paraphrase you a year ago: "Back, and to the left... back, and to the left... back, and to the left". :-)

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Roosevelt Island is a mixed income, racially diverse waterfront community situated in the East River of New York City between Manhattan and Queens and is jurisdictionally part of Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the rest of Manhattan, has become the iconic symbol of Roosevelt Island to its residents.

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